Chapter 2: The Hogwarts Express

Discalimer: Sadly, still not mine.

Author's Notes: Once again, I owe a huge thank-you to DracoGurlFurever who has helped me get this whipped into shape. Also, thank-you to everyone who read Chapter 1 as well :-) With that, here is Chapter 2. I hope you enjoy it and if you do (or even if you don't!) please leave a review :-) Thanks!

'Quick, Padfoot! Hurry up! We'll miss the train otherwise!'

James Potter and Sirius Black were running along the platform with minutes to spare. Sirius pushed his legs faster, stretching his stride as far as he could, despite the fact that he was pulling his heavy trunk along behind him.

'I know – I'm going as fast as I can!' Sirius shouted in reply. The boys tossed their luggage in through the door and jumped onto the train just as it started to slowly move off from the platform.

'Do me a favour next year, will you?' James puffed, leaning up against the wall. 'Get up on time.'

'Me?' Sirius blurted incredulously. 'I wasn't the one who insisted on spending forty-five minutes in the bathroom doing my hair!' James gave him a withering stare, but the effect was slightly impeded by the fact that he was still gasping for air like a fish out of water. 'Not that it looks any different to how it normally looks,' Sirius grumbled under his breath, trying to return his own breathing to normal. He couldn't wait until he was seventeen and old enough to learn to Apparate. The ability to appear and disappear in any location you desired was definitely one of the bonuses of being a wizard.

'I swear, you two are becoming more and more like an old married couple,' came a voice from down the corridor. Sirius and James looked up to see Remus and Peter walking towards them, each wearing a broad, if slightly smug, smile on their face. Peter continued, 'I think they should just make it official and announce their engagement, don't you, Remus?'

'I quite agree,' Remus replied with a smirk before both he and Peter started laughing.

'Hardy har har,' James replied bitterly, 'just give us a hand with these, will you?' James gestured to the trunks that were lying at their feet.

'Love to, but can't; I have to get down to the Prefects' meeting. I'll see you in a bit.' Remus squeezed himself past James and Sirius and walked towards the front of the train.

'I'll help you,' Peter replied eagerly. 'Remus and I picked a cabin just a few doors down.' Peter pointed with his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the cabin that he was talking about before bending down and helping James lift his trunk.

The three boys negotiated their way down the corridor into the cabin. Once in, they stored the trunks on the racks above the seats before settling in and discussing things that had happened since they had last seen each other.

'Oh, I heard a great joke the other day!' Peter chatted happily. Sirius and James exchanged a dubious look. Peter may have been a close friend, but his idea of a 'great' joke rarely corresponded with the idea of a 'great' joke for anyone else; in fact, more often than not, these jokes were incredibly unfunny.

Restraining the long-suffering tone from his voice, Sirius said, 'Come on then, do tell. You know Prongs and I like a good joke.' Sirius smiled warmly, and Peter beamed back at him.

'Okay, what do ghosts serve for pudding?' Peter looked like he was barely containing his glee at sharing his joke, but Sirius was struggling to restrain his groan. It was a sheer testament to how much he valued Peter's friendship that he managed it.

'I don't know,' James replied, trying very hard to sound interested, 'what do ghosts serve for pudding?'

'I scream!' Peter declared joyfully before he laughed loudly. Sirius and James shared a look before they both laughed mildly to keep Peter appeased – and, especially, to stop him from telling any more horrendous jokes.

It was just then that Remus came back into the cabin, and the boys' talk was diverted for a short while to discuss the gossip from the Prefects' meeting. Sirius fought to hold back a chuckle at James's barrage of questions about Lily Evans, who worked with Remus as a sixth-year Prefect for Gryffindor. He only relented when Remus told him – half seriously, half jokingly – that he wasn't Lily's personal secretary, or keeper, or stalker, so he didn't know every detail of Lily's life.

After exhausting the Prefects' meeting as a topic of conversation, Sirius was feeling restless. He hated sitting still for too long and decided it was about time to see if they could find any fun elsewhere on the train. With any luck, they might bump into Severus Snape; he was always a great source of entertainment for Sirius. The two boys had been enemies almost from the moment they first met, and over the years, Sirius's impression of Snape hadn't improved by even the smallest of margins. Growing up a Black, Sirius knew the signs of the Dark Arts, and Snape reeked of them. To Sirius, being involved, or even mildly interested, in the Dark Arts was the most repulsive thing anyone could do, an unforgivable crime.

'Come on – I fancy a walk.' He jumped up from his seat and clapped his hands together with a grin. 'Let's see who we can find, shall we?' His grin was mischievous and James clearly recognised it.

'Sure, Pads, but let's try and not wind up with a detention before we've even reached Hogwarts, eh?' James said with a slight chuckle.

'Spoil sport,' Sirius replied petulantly before both boys fell about laughing as they walked out of the cabin.

The others followed them, with James taking the lead, as they all strolled down the corridor, peering in through the windows where possible. Sirius noted to himself that James was probably on the lookout for the redhead who'd been the topic of their earlier conversation, and this was confirmed not a moment later when James suddenly knocked on a door and poked his head in to speak to whoever was inside. Sirius leaned over Peter's shoulder to see through the window and grinned when he saw Sophia McKinloch, Lily's best friend, sitting alone.

Although Sophia could be quiet on occasion, Sirius did get along with her reasonably well. She, at least, didn't seem to be as stuck up about school rules as Lily was. He'd only started to get to know Sophia after Remus had become friends with her back in fourth year, but even now she tended to only associate with them when Remus was around. In fact, the friendship between Remus and Sophia was such that Sirius often wondered if there was anything more than friendship between the two of them, but when the other Marauders had questioned Remus, he had flat-out denied it. Of course, the other boys believed Remus immediately, but that didn't mean they didn't still tease him about Sophia every once in a while.

All the same, the time he had spent with Sophia had been generally enjoyable, and he found that he was often able to twist things that she said or did much to his own amusement. Of course, anything of that nature was always done in fun – after all, she was a friend of Remus and a Gryffindor, and Sirius protected those he thought of as being one of his own.

~~~~~

'Hey, Sophia, mind if we come in?' James asked. To Sophia, James didn't appear as if he had changed much over the summer – his dark hair was still sticking up at the back, and he still had that air of confidence (Lily would say 'arrogance') about him.

'Sure, be my guest,' she said brightly, gesturing to the empty seats. One by one, the four Marauders came in and sat down. James went to the seat opposite Sophia by the window, and he was followed by Sirius and Peter, while Remus took up the seat next to her. Looking at the other three boys, Sophia realised that, like James, they too had changed very little over the summer apart from all of them being marginally taller, and perhaps they had all filled out slightly as well.

The only one who seemed to have changed any more than that was Sirius, but Sophia couldn't pinpoint what it was that was different about him. Hamish, who'd been disturbed by the movement of the boys, got up and walked over to Remus, who absentmindedly started scratching the cat behind the ears, causing a loud and appreciative purr to come from Hamish's throat. For some reason, Hamish had a slight fascination with Remus – whenever Remus was near, Hamish was sure to seek him out.

'So, where's Evans?' James asked, trying to sound as indifferent as possible, but failing miserably as far as Sophia was concerned. Sirius seemed to take the same view of James's behaviour; Sophia saw him roll his eyes and chuckle to himself.

'She's patrolling the corridors – and before you ask, no, I don't know how long she will be away for,' Sophia replied with a knowing smile, noting James's apparent disappointment. 'How have your summers been, anyway? Got any interesting news?'

'Oh, summer was fine, thanks. I got made Gryffindor Quidditch Captain,' James beamed, puffing his chest out slightly as he did.

'That's great, James! Well done!' Sophia congratulated with a kind smile. While she didn't care much for Quidditch herself, she knew that it was one of James's main passions in life, and therefore she could guess how big an achievement this was for him.

'Thanks,' James replied before adding, 'Sirius has got some news too, don't you, Sirius?' James said, looking to his friend.

'Yeah, guess what? I moved out!' Sirius said, grinning wildly.

'You moved out? Out of where? Your parents' house?' Sophia asked, her voice pitching up in tone as realisation suddenly dawned on her. She had known, of course, that Sirius had radically different ideas to his parents, but she didn't think that he would actually move away from home. After all, he only went home during the summer holidays, which were eight weeks long – she would have thought he could have lasted that short amount of time with them, but, apparently, she was wrong. 'Where did you go?'

'Moved in with James; his parents said they would take me in if I wanted when I went there after an argument with my parents, so I took them up on their offer,' he replied cheerily. So this was what was different about Sirius: he was ... settled, happy to be free of his parents.

'Well James, I'll say one thing. Your mother is a brave woman having you two living in the same house!' Sophia said, pointing at the two boys with one eyebrow raised and a stern look before her face cracked into a smile and everyone burst out laughing. 'Anyway, how did you do on your O.W.L.s?' she asked once the laughter had died down.

'We all did all right, thanks – well enough in the subjects we want to continue with, anyway,' Remus replied, still scratching Hamish. 'How about yourself? Did you get the results you wanted?'

'Yes, and I can take all the subjects I need to become an Auror, so I'm happy,' Sophia replied with a smile.

'What's that you're reading?' Peter asked, pointing at the book in Sophia's hand with a quizzical look.

'Oh, this?' she asked as she raised the book and shook it slightly. 'It's a Muggle book called Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. It's a romance book, so it's probably of no interest to you lot, but it's very good and one of my favourite stories. My Gran gave me this copy of it when we went to visit her over the summer,' she replied with a forced smile.

Sophia was a private person, so talking about a romance book with four boys was stretching her comfort zone quite a bit. She would have happily talked to Lily about this book and related subjects, but talking about the same subject with these boys (two of whom were James and Sirius) seemed very ... unappealing. It was the fact that the subject could so easily spin into her own love life (which, for the moment, was non-existent, but that was not the point) that made her nervous; if it was anyone else's love life, that would be fine, but her own was strictly off limits to these four. She thought it prudent at this point to change the topic to save herself from this potentially uncomfortable problem, but luckily Sirius stepped in.

'Well, James, maybe you should try reading it. Might give you a bit of luck with Lily,' he said with a glint in his eye, nudging James with his arm. Sophia had to smile to herself; she did feel sorry for James on some level. She, along with the whole of the school, seemed to know how he felt about Lily, but he failed to realise that sometimes he was his own worst enemy. He somehow always managed to say or do the wrong thing around her. Sophia had failed to understand if it was nerves that made James mess up so frequently or if he deliberately did these 'stunts' in his misguided attempts to woo her. She feared it was the latter.

'You don't need this book, James,' Sophia said, 'you just need to get a better understanding of her, that's all.'

'Oh, yeah – in what way?' James asked eagerly. Again, Sophia caught Sirius rolling his eyes.

Sophia leaned forward, making eye contact with James as she started to speak. 'Well, for one thing, stop putting her in a difficult position with Snape. You know that she was friends with him before they even came to Hogwarts, and when you two,' she pointed to Sirius and James, 'start hexing him for no reason, you put her right in the middle. And you two aren't any better either, letting them do it,' she finished, moving her attention to Peter and Remus – they were refusing to make eye contact with her.

'Well, we don't always start it,' James responded defensively.

'Yes, but there are occasions when you do. Take the end of last year, for example. You were bored so you decided it would be funny to flip him upside down. I'm not condoning what Snape called Lily, either,' she hastily added, seeing the look of indignation on all their faces, 'but the fact remains that you did start it.

'I'm not particularly keen on Snape either, but I respect the fact that Lily is friends with him ... or was, at least. I don't know what is going to happen to their friendship now, but it wouldn't hurt your prospects if you backed off him for a while. Lily needs to see that you have matured, James, that's all. Be someone she can depend on,' Sophia concluded before settling back into her seat. She looked at James and was pleased to see that she had shocked him into silence – hopefully, this would mean that some of what she had said would filter through to his brain.

Almost on cue, Lily came back into the cabin, and Sophia saw her visibly stiffen when she saw the Marauders there. 'Oh ... er ... hi. What are you all doing here?' Lily asked.

'Nice to see you too, Lily,' Sirius replied, trying to sound affronted at Lily's briskness. 'We were just chatting with Sophia, that's all. If you don't want us here, you only have to say so.' Sophia wasn't sure if Sirius was saying this to wind Lily or James up, but either way, he seemed to be having great fun with the situation. Lily didn't seem to know how to respond, and James seemed to still be processing everything that he'd just been told by Sophia and was therefore incapable of speech.

Men seriously can't multitask, Sophia thought wryly.

'Come on, guys, I think it's time we left the girls to get back to whatever it was they were doing,' Remus said. As he stood up, Hamish glared at him before getting up and moving back to Sophia's lap. Peter seemed unsure whether to follow Remus's lead and turned to look at Sirius and James before moving. Sirius smiled and rose to his feet.

'Yeah, you're right, Remus, I guess we should get back to our own cabin and get planning for the coming term,' Sirius said, with a wink at Lily, before turning round to pull James to his feet. Peter now followed Sirius, James, and Remus out of the cabin, leaving Lily and Sophia alone again.

'What did they want?' Lily asked, looking either angry or worried (Sophia couldn't tell which). 'And what did Black mean by 'planning'? They had better not be planning any pranks – I will be less than amused with Lupin if he lets them. He's supposed to be a Prefect, for Merlin's sake!' Lily said exasperatedly as she sat down opposite Sophia, throwing her arms in the air in the process.

'Oh, you know that lot, a bit of this, a bit of that – nothing important, although Black has moved in with the Potters now,' Sophia said, trying her best to sound casual and not laugh at her friend's naivety. 'Oh, and I would bet my last galleon that they will be planning something – they wouldn't be the Marauders otherwise.'

However, Lily seemed to have reached that conclusion by herself and just looked resigned to the situation that would undoubtedly arise sooner or later (knowing the Marauders, Sophia assumed it would be sooner).

A short while later, there was another knock on the cabin door, and Lily and Sophia were joined by the three girls that they shared a dorm room with. Lucy Brewer was the first girl to come through the door, followed by Melanie Gambrill and Niahm Hill. Lucy was a petite girl with white blonde hair that was cut into a bob that sat just at chin level. She also had the most beautiful smile that reflected perfectly her bubbly personality. Lucy always joked that she wasn't short – she was merely pocket-sized.

Melanie was almost the complete opposite of Lucy – she had hair that was almost black in colour, and it would easily reach down to the small of her back if she didn't braid it into a plait. She was taller than Sophia and had an athletic body shape which suited her tomboy image. She had also been on the Gryffindor Quidditch team since third year, playing the position of Keeper.

Finally, there was Niahm, who was slightly smaller than Sophia with strawberry-blonde hair and freckles over her face. Niahm also was prone to laughing at the smallest thing, which was fine in itself, but her laugh was so infectious that it would set all the other girls off too.

The five girls quickly caught up on everyone's news from the summer before the conversation turned to the subject of boys.

'So, come on, Lils,' Melanie said, 'what's going on between you and James? Are you not even tempted?'

'No,' said Lily, perhaps a little bit too quickly. 'Not in his wildest dreams would I ever go out with him.'

'Why not? He's actually a really good guy. If you would just give him a chance, you might see that,' Melanie continued. After being on the Quidditch team with him for three years, Melanie had gotten to know James fairly well.

'I've told you, time and time again – no. He's so ... he's too ... he's just irritating,' Lily said with more than just a hint of frustration in her voice.

'I think the lady doth protest too much,' Sophia said, giving the rest of the girls a wink which earned her a swift punch to the arm from Lily. 'Ow! You know we're only winding you up,' she said, trying not to laugh and rubbing her arm.

'Yeah, well, don't,' Lily replied, the finality in her tone showing that she clearly didn't want to field any more questions about James Potter. 'Anyway,' she continued, sounding much friendlier again, 'I think we are here now. We should probably get changed.'

Sophia looked out of the window at the dark night's sky and the wild scenery and realised that they were indeed very close to Hogwarts now. The girls all murmured their agreement, and each quickly changed into their school robes before the train came to a graceful stop at Hogsmeade Station.